Praedicator

Verba

Sunday, May 3, 2009 - Fourth Sunday of Easter

[Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18]

I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.

The fourth Sunday of Easter is traditionally known as "Good Shepherd" Sunday. In all three scripture cycles, the gospel scripture is taken from John 10 in which Jesus identifies himself as the "Good Shepherd." For most of us, I would wager that we don't venture too far from the stained glass/holy card imagery that is often used to portray Jesus as the Good Shepherd. He has a lamb in one arm, a shepherd's crook (crosier?) in the other, and the rest of the sheep just kind of gather around looking up to him adoringly! We might go so far as to recall Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want......" This is all very comforting and there's nothing wrong with it. However, we need to go deeper and wider to catch the full meaning of what Jesus is saying. And what he was saying was very threatening and dangerous to the religious authorities of his day.
Why is this so? One has only to recall the passages from the Prophet Ezekiel that thunder against the corrupt shepherds! (Ezekiel 34:1-24) These words promise that the Lord himself will become the shepherd and the old shepherds would be destroyed! Uh oh! Furthermore, the image of shepherd was commonly applied to the kings of Israel. Recall the statement of the leaders to Pilate, "We have no king but Caesar!" Ooooooh!
Now lest we get smug, we had better remember that the job of being a shepherd is anything but romantic. Sheep are not the most intelligent beasts in the world. They can be a smelly, messy and nasty bunch that run in all directions at once! The image of the shepherd leaving the 99 and hunting for the lost one is as dangerous to the shepherd as it is comforting to those of us who don't mind being compared to sheep!
There's plenty of material for both shepherds and sheep of our present day pastoral reality to give thought to. The shepherds must be accountable for their work. The sheep must pay attention to the true voice of the Good Shepherd! AMEN